Ajivikas: A Murder Story

from Dhamma by Sir Ravana

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Ashoka is commonly eulogized in Indian history textbooks as a great emperor and a pacifist. A current television serial is adding to the legend. The problem is that this is all based on very thin evidence and, even a little bit of probing, suggests a very different story.

In 274BC, Bindusara suddenly fell ill and died. The crown prince Sushima was away fending off incursions on the north-western frontiers and rushed back to Pataliputra, the royal capital. However, on arrival he found that Ashoka, one of his half-brothers, had taken control of the city with the help of Greek mercenaries. It appears that Ashoka had Sushima killed at the eastern gates. This was followed by four years of a bloody civil war in which Ashoka seems to have killed all male rivals in his family. Buddhist texts mention that he killed ninety-nine half-brothers and only spared his full brother Tissa. Hundreds of loyalist officials were also killed. Having consolidated his power, he was finally crowned emperor in 270BC.

All accounts agree that Ashoka’s early rule was brutal and unpopular, and that he was known as “Ashoka the Cruel."

It is likely that when Ashoka usurped the throne, he was opposed by family members who had links to the Jains and the Ajivikas. He may have responded by reaching out to their rivals, the Buddhists, for support. This may explain his later treatment of Jains and Ajivikas. The power struggle may even explain his invasion of Kalinga. The mainstream view is that Kalinga was an independent kingdom that was invaded by Ashoka but there is some reason to believe that it was either a rebellious province or a vassal that was no longer trusted.

Whatever the real reasons for the attracting Ashoka’s ire, a large Mauryan army marched into Kalinga around 262BC. The Kalingans never had a chance. Ashoka’s own inscriptions tell us that a 100,000 died in the war and an even larger number died from wounds and hunger. A further 150,000 were taken away as captives.

According to the official narrative, Ashoka was horrified by his own brutality and became a Buddhist and a pacifist. However, as we have seen, he was already a practicing Buddhist when he invaded Kalinga. Moreover, from what we know of his early rule, he was hardly a man to be easily shocked by the sight of blood. The main evidence of his repentance comes from his own inscriptions. However, it is very curious that this “regret” is mentioned only in locations far away from Odisha (such as in Shahbazgarhi in north-western Pakistan). None of the inscriptions in Odisha express any remorse; any hint of regret is deliberately left out.

Surely, if Ashoka was genuinely remorseful, he would have bothered to apologize to the people whom he had wronged. Far from it, he does not even offer to free the captives. Even the inscriptions where he expresses regret include a clear threat of violence against other groups like the forest tribes who are unequivocally “told of the power to punish them that Devanampriya possesses in spite of his repentance, in order that they may be ashamed of their crimes and may not be killed”[2]. This is no pacifist.

It appears that Ashoka was using his inscriptions as a tool of political propaganda to counter his reputation for cruelty. As with the words of any politician, this does not mean he changed his behavior. Indeed, given that several of his inscriptions are deliberately placed in locations that are difficult to reach, it is quite possible that some of the propaganda was meant for us rather than his contemporaries. The Pali text Ashoka-vadana, moreover, tells us of more acts of genocide perpetrated by the emperor many years after he supposedly turned pacifist [3]. These were directed particularly at followers of the Jain and Ajivika sects; by all accounts he avoided conflicts with mainstream Hindus and was respectful towards Brahmins. The Ashokavadana clearly tells us how an enraged Ashoka had 18,000 Ajivikas in Bengal put to death in a single episode. This is the first known instance of large-scale religious persecution in Indian history and sadly, would not be the last.

More Here
swarajyamag.com/culture/ashoka-the-not-so-great

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from Dhamma, released February 1, 2018

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Sir Ravana New Delhi, India

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In a sense, electronic music is a vacuum  - the entire damn genre started off as nothing more than a series of electrical inventions which gained popularity after composers applied them to their own cultures. New Delhi-based artist Ravana, named after the antagonist of Valmiki’s epic poem Ramayana, follows in these classics’ footsteps to re-imagine their music. ... more

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